The Basin Record Newsletter Vol.3 Issue 1

We sometimes forget how interconnected we are. The February 16th, 1901 issue of the Fort Steele Prospector newspaper drew attention to the fact that coal in the Elk Valley meant wealth for Cranbrook and other areas of the province. “We learn that fifteen locomotives have been ordered for the Crow’s Nest line, also a large amount of rolling stock, which is expected to arrive about the first of March. “This is due to the largely increasing output of coal. “Commencing in March, the output of the Crow’s Nest Coal mines will be from 2,000 to 3,000 tons daily. Thirty trains per day, run on a regular scheduled time card, will be required to handle the coal and coke output from the Fernie mines.” When one drives up the Columbia Valley today and passes the large C.P.R. yards at Golden, the economic links of our region become clear. For more than one hundred years mining and transportation have assisted in developing the Columbia Basin. Empty On The Swan We were delighted the other day when Colin Cartwright walked into our office with a copy of his first published book, “Empty On the Swan – A Trucker and Logger’s View of the Whiteswan Road.” This is the type of work that we fully support at the Columbia Basin Institute – a worker’s view of a very particular place and how the pressures of time are changing the surprisingly recent history. Colin is well qualified. He is a lifetime resident of Canal Flats and his dad was a Forest Ranger with responsibility for the Canal Flats Forest District before the road to Whiteswan was completed past the lake in 1956. Colin’s experience emphasizes just how transitory history is. “As the use of place names became less frequent, they and their origin gradually faded frommemory. The preservation of the names and some of the stories of the road therefore, became the main reason for recording them as best I can.” Everyone should read Colin’s recounting of the tussle at Lussier Hot Springs on a winter night And those novices wanting to negotiate logging roads should read the “Slippery Corner” stories. His best is very good indeed. This is a highly readable and fascinating work. It focuses on a very small piece of land, but incorporates a way of life and a way of work that is common throughout the Columbia Basin. We would encourage people throughout the Columbia Basin to get hold of Colin’s book and consider it as one man’s guide to getting involved in the recording and rescue of our local history. “Empty On the Swan” is available at local bookstores for $21.95 or you can send us your order and we will pass it on to Colin. 0196.0041 “I just don’t know what happened! The horses never behaved thisway!”TheCranbrookKimberley stageoperatedbyMcLeod andBrownexperiencingunexplaineddifficulties. (1926)Brown Photo A Base of Regional Prosperity Maimie Shiells was an extraordinary history volunteer. She was not only a 1978 founding member of the Kimberley District Heritage Society, but continued to actively serve as a Director until her passing in January 2007. Maimie met her future husband, Archie Shiells, in England during WW II. A Cominco employee, Archie returned to his job in Kimberley after the war. Maimie followed from London, England in 1947. She worked for the Hudson Bay store in Kimberley and, later, for Cominco in the Company Office from which she retired in 1981. With Mrs. Cunningham she ran a dancing school for more than 10 years, donating all proceeds from their efforts to charity. Maimie was an active promoter of our region’s heritage and was sometimes fierce in her advocacy. She was truly one-of-a-kind and will be deeply missed by all who knew and worked with her. Maimie Shiells 1917 - 2007 R.I.P. from The Cranbrook Herald, August 10, 1905 (p5) The Herald was told this week that Tom Hickey caught a trout in St. Mary’s lake last week that weighed 34 pounds. It was so large and so game that it had to be shot before it could be landed.